Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Someone recently asked me for recommendations for summer reading. I decided to post my response. If I had to select the top favorite books I've read in the last five years, the list would include the following:

1. Dever, Mark. The Message of the New Testament. Wheaton : Crossway, 2005.This book is the best summary of genuine biblical Christianity that I know of. Whether you agree with the book or not, at least you will understand what true, biblical Christianity is all about.

2. Levin, Mark. Liberty and Tyranny; A conservative manifesto. New York : Threshold, 2009.I wish it were in my power to make reading this book a mandatory condition for voting. Whether you agree with the book or not, at least you will understand what political conservatism is all about.

3. Evans, Craig. Fabricating Jesus. Wheaton, IL : IVP, 2006.Outstanding treatment of the controversy surrounding Jesus and the Gospels, including discussion of the so-called "lost gospels" like the Gospels of Judas, The Gospel of Thomas and others.

2 comments:

The first wholly new interpretation for 2000 years of the moral teachings of Christ is on the web. Redefining all primary elements including Faith, the Word and the Resurrection, this new interpretation questions the validity and origins of all Christian tradition; focusing specifically on marriage, love and human sexuality, it overturns all natural law ethics and theory. At stake is the credibility of several thousand years of religious history and moral teaching, and will certainly impact other fields of intellectual inquiry.

Using a synthesis of scriptural material from the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha , The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Nag Hammadi Library, and some of the worlds great poetry, it describes and teaches a single moral LAW, a single moral principle offering the promise of its own proof; one in which the reality of God responds to an act of perfect faith with a direct, individual intervention into the natural world; correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries. Intended to be understood metaphorically, where 'death' is ignorance and 'Life' is knowledge, this experience, personal encounter and liberation by transcendent power and moral purpose is the 'Resurrection', the justification of faith and foundation of righteousness.

Often stated, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and rightly so. Here then is the first ever viable religious conception capable of leading reason, by faith, to observable consequences which can be tested and judged. This new teaching delivers the first ever religious claim of insight into the human condition, that meets the Enlightenment criteria of verifiable, evidence based truth embodied in action. For the first time in history, a moral tenet exists, offering access by faith, to absolute proof for its belief.

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If confirmed and there appears both the means and a growing, concerted effort to test and authenticate this material, this will represent a paradigm change in the moral and intellectual potential of human nature itself; untangling and resolving the greatest questions of human existence: consciousness, meaning, suffering, free will and evil. And at the same time offering real solutions to the most profound problems of our age.

While trials of this new teaching are under way in several countries, colloquial evidence from discussion forums already suggest confirmations are taking place and probably increasing. For those individuals who can imagine outside the historical cultural box, who are willing to learn something new and stand against the stream of fashionable thought and spin, an intellectual and moral revolution is already in progress, where the 'impossible' becomes inevitable and with the most potent Non Violent Direct Action any human being can take for peace, justice, change and progress.

Published [at the moment] only on the web, a typeset manuscript of this new teaching is available as a free [1.4meg] PDF download from a variety of sites including: www.energon.org.uk

About Me

I am a library director, Bible professor, and ordained pastor with masters' degrees in library science and theological studies, and a doctor of philosophy in religion and society. This blog contains some of my articles, essays and posts.